Page 109 of Loud Unspoken Memories

With that, he climbs back in his truck, circles around my truck, and leaves.

Belatedly, I think I should have told the guy not to bother with Abe’s delivery either. But it was the last thing on my mind.

I hold the vase and let my eyes rake over the complete and total destruction of everything. The ash that represents the past few years of my life. But when I look down at the vase, only one thought occurs—I wish I’d found something of Marti’s too. The book we were reading. The last bottle of wine we shared.Ah, fuck… the bracelet she left.

All of a sudden, I remember the dream. The dream that plagued me for two nights. The one where Phoebe and DJ walked into the fire.Jesus, that’s… I scrub a hand across my jaw…that’s fucked up.

I make my way back to the truck with only the vase in my hands, not bothering to look back.

There’s nothing left for me here.

It’s a fact I think I knew even before I drove up here four hours ago.

~ ~ ~

Nobody’s home when I arrive, but I know the code to the front door. I doubt my parents will care very much if I crash here for a while. In fact, I’m fairly sure they’ll be happy about it.

Bex greets me as soon as I walk in.

“Hey, buddy. Where is everyone?”

When he doesn’t answer, I go back to the room that used to be mine. I sit on the bed thinking how it’s changed. Long gone are the race car posters that once lined these walls. The signed swimsuit photo of Gigi Hadid that, as a fifteen-year-old, was my most prized possession. The binders of Pokémon cards I used to trade with my grade school friends. Everything about this room is different. I lie back and close my eyes.

They snap open when a familiar vanilla scent swirls around me. I sit up and look around, half expecting Marti to be standing in the room, wondering if I even want her to be.KnowingI do.

But she’s not here. Just the ghosts of my childhood fill the room… and vanilla. I swear I can smell her. My nose is playing tricks on me.

I lay back and close my eyes again, but the silence is disrupted by the rumble in my stomach. Why didn’t I stop for lunch? Or breakfast for that matter? Thinking back, I haven’t eaten a thing since yesterday and it’s almost dinnertime.

Bex runs into my calves when I stop abruptly in the kitchen doorway. My coat is hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. And not the coat I was wearing when I arrived. It’s the one I loaned to Marti. The one she never returned.

Again, I look around as if she’ll appear out of thin air.

My heart stops when someone comes around the corner. It restarts again when I see it’s just Allie.

“You’re home!” She runs over and wraps me in a hug.

I pat her on the back. “Yeah, well, I didn’t really have a choice.”

“What does that mean?”

I shake my head, not wanting to delve into it quite yet. “Where is everyone? And how in the hell did this coat get here.”

A sinister smile grows up her face. “Marti brought it.”

Thump thump thump.

“She’shere?”

“Was. Not anymore. Left this morning.”

“Um… what… why?”

“If you don’t know why then you’re not as smart as I thought you were, Dallas. That girl is obviously in love with you. She came under the guise of returning the coat.”

I nod. “She thought I’d be at the party.”

“She said she completely forgot about the party. But she did end up going. Along with Charlie and… Asher.” She sighs like a schoolgirl with a big-time crush.

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